Recovery
by Mendeia
Summary: Oneshot, 50-word prompt about injury, healing, and battle for the turtle family. Leonardo focuses on how much gauze they're about to go through, not whether or not they'll ever get the chance to heal.


Inspired by a fic I read a long time ago, I took a 50-word prompt and did one sentence each, all floating around the ideas of the turtle family in battle, getting hurt, healing themselves and each other, and walking back into the fight.

Placed somewhere in the 2003 cartoon universe.

I don't own the turtles. They are late of Peter Laird and Mirage, now owned by Nickelodeon and Viacom. I am just borrowing them for entertainment.

Enjoy!

* * *

1. Snow

There are a few tricks to staying invisible, even in snowdrifts, but none of them involve a twisted knee; the only bright side in Donatello's mind is that snow is also the best quick remedy for the swelling.

2. Child

When the turtles were young, Master Splinter explained to them that crying, especially when hurt, was okay as long as it was not in the heat of a battle, and from that day on, not one of the four shed a tear while training, no matter what happened in the dojo.

3. Brick

Raph hates getting stitches more than the rest of the turtles combined, so whenever he gets patched up, his whole face turns stony and flushed and he looks more like an angry statue than a living, bleeding turtle.

4. Judgment

"Dude, it TOTALLY didn't look that far down before I tried the jump!"

5. Powder

When the turtles were about ten, they got into the medicine cabinet; ever since, all four of them have associated the smell of baby powder with pushups.

6. Grim

Donnie is the resident medic of the family, and when he doesn't chatter while patching a wound, the others know to stand back, hand him what he needs, and pray, because when the brainiac stops communicating verbally, it's worse than it looks.

7. Trap

Leo knows the open door will lead them all into danger, and he can almost count the scars that will be his to bear when they walk back out, victorious as ever, but paying the toll for justice with their flesh.

8. Star

No matter how many times he gets bonked on the head, Mikey has never once seen stars or pretty fluttering birds or anything – for his, he still feels gypped.

9. Possession

Looking down at the TV remote, Splinter can't quite fathom why this one item so regularly results in his sons looking like they met Hun in a dark alley.

10. Bandage

The first thing April learned after living with the turtles for a while was that they weren't, no matter how it appeared, invincible; the second thing she learned was how to help.

11. Pearl

The sweat was beaded on Leonardo's forehead in such large, perfect drops, if he'd been at all of a poetic mind, Don might have momentarily forgotten his task in speculation.

12. Glass

In the movies, glass shatters painlessly into tiny shards that sprinkle down harmlessly around the heroes – Raph sure wishes it worked like that in warehouses.

13. Classified

After the third "ooh, so what is THAT for?" question from Casey as he leaned over the infirmary cot, Mikey decided he really didn't need to know anything else about his own anatomy.

14. Buttons

It takes a lot to get either Donnie or Leo mad enough to make mistakes in a fight, but once they're there, it takes a lot less for them to be sorry for losing their tempers later: Don for the block he won't make, and Leo for the strike someone else will take.

15. Closet

One cabinet in the lair always has a spreadsheet on it listing supplies and dosages and treatments, all things Donatello memorized a long time ago, so whenever the turtles need the information on the door in his absence, they sure miss him.

16. Ash

April has been in enough explosions and burning buildings that she can almost tell how bad the fire was by the evidence on her clothing afterwards.

17. Definition

"Cleared for patrol" never had anything to do with physical healing – the turtles would patrol even if they'd lost their arms and legs – but rather referred to the whole family's readiness to send someone they had worried over, bandaged up, and nursed all the way to annoyance back out into the world that had brought them down in the first place.

18. Staircase

It's nights like this one that Mikey most misses the lair that had an elevator, and given the look on Raph's face as he bumbles down the ladder, he's not the only one.

19. Nail

Casey looks dumbly at the nasty, rusty thing sticking through his arm after a fall into a dumpster, wondering simultaneously why it doesn't hurt and how much it will hurt when Donnie takes it out.

20. Prey

Raph had gotten bored enough with his invalid status that wiggling his toes under the blanket for Klunk to pounce on had become entertaining; to his credit, the little feline was no slouch at stealth.

21. Backwards

He doesn't know when they switched, but now it is Splinter who is hounded by his sons to patch up every little scratch – remembering his own anxiety from their injuries when young, he can only sigh and indulge their worry.

22. Trouble

Three turtles down, one left standing, and because he cannot let himself consider anything else, Leonardo focuses on how much gauze they're about to go through, not whether or not they'll ever get the chance to heal.

23. Little

"This scratch is nothing for the Battle Nexus Champion, just a tiny little – YIKES!"

24. Collar

When Raphael gets back from a night of solo wandering with a gash the size of New Jersey in his thigh, Leo considers whether it's worth the effort to get him a GPS tracker and force him to wear it before he goes back out again.

25. Circle

The worst nights are the ones when everyone needs some help, and the four brothers sit with their father, each one binding a wound and each having one bound simultaneously – it is at once oddly comforting and immensely worrying.

26. Hands

After probably saving his brother from bleeding out, Donatello washes his hands about six times, shaking harder with each pass, until he can't quite remember what lifeblood feels like as it flees the body of someone he loves.

27. Freedom

Michelangelo learned how to skateboard with a splinted ankle a long time ago – if he couldn't, he'd probably go crazy!

28. Last

The turtles are fanatical about their medical supplies, ever since the day they had to resort to bandanas and belts when the bandages ran out; when they hit the last box of anything, even Mikey will put off fun to make sure they are fully stocked once more.

29. Scab

Being a turtle has its drawbacks for sure, Leo considers, especially when all they want to do is itch at new skin growing behind the plastron; for this reason, all back-scratchers have been banned from the lair.

30. Crown

By the third repetition of "Raph fell down and broke his crown and Don came tumbling after," they were certain Michelangelo either had a concussion, or else he was about to annoy somebody into giving him one.

31. Time

It's been said that time heals all wounds, but the turtles know sometimes time takes a while to do her work, and what time doesn't do, they do for each other.

32. Rice

The day Casey graduated from eating oatmeal to rice, courtesy of a broken jaw, April renewed her vow to get him a better hockey mask.

33. Worn

The stethoscope wasn't new when he got it, found in the junkyard with a rubbery tape holding it together in places, but it has served Master Splinter and Donatello well throughout the years nonetheless.

34. Paint

Only once did Mikey spread paint on his plastron and moan to get out of doing chores – after that, Master Splinter made sure he was in REAL pain for a while in a lesson forcibly taught and learned.

35. Ache

There is no better ache in the world, as far as Raph could tell, than the soreness that comes from building back strength when muscles are healing.

36. Cherry

Cherries are solid in the center, but when broken, they can squirt and stain everywhere; it's a similarity to his brothers that Donatello tries hard not to think about whenever one of them winds up under his care.

37. Library

"Dude, how many books do you NEED about patching up…never mind."

38. Win

Whether they emerged in triumph or fled, it never really mattered; any battle was a loss if one of them came out hurt.

39. Loss

A distinct disadvantage to being one of only four like you on the planet means there aren't a whole lot of compatible blood donors around when things go wrong – thus, the brothers have learned to donate blood to their cause whenever they can, just in case.

40. Fold

Master Splinter is often not beside his sons when they enter danger; he always knows when they are in trouble, though, so he stills his worry by preparing new bandages and making up the cot in case they need it.

41. Music

The brothers had learned years ago that medical tape, just taut enough across their plastrons, twanged like a creaky banjo; this amuses them to no end, and drives everybody else to distraction.

42. Bell

"The bell, it tolls for thee," said the creepy, gravelly voice; it was, Raph decided, about the worst way to wake up ever, and he made Mikey pay for it for weeks.

43. Sleep

When injured, Leo cannot let himself sleep until he sees every one of his brothers, and his father, and Casey and April if they were there, all safe in the lair, mostly because if he doesn't see them before he rests, a part of him fears they won't be there when he wakes.

44. Contact

As turtle fist makes a solid dent in the armor of a Foot ninja, he wonders exactly when his hands grew so strong and hard and scarred that they no longer feel the blow of flesh against metal.

45. Electricity

When April stands up after a hit so hard her eyes aren't quite focused when she turns them on him, Casey feels rage, then nothing, and the next Purple Dragon he meets feels a whole lot of pain.

46. Milk

Just about when he thinks his head is going to explode from the migraine, Splinter sets down a cup of warm milk before him, rubs his temples soothingly, and reminds Don why he's working so hard in the first place.

47. Wild

Even as he falls out of control and knowing he won't walk away from impact without at least one broken bone, Michelangelo grins anyway – in spite of it all, the fall was an awesome ride.

48. Expectation

There are few constants in the universe, but one of them is that Raph doesn't expect his brothers to be perfect; he expects them to endure until he gets there to take the heat off them and onto himself.

49. Mechanism

With the situation unwinnable and grave, Leo finds comfort in sliding back into his ingrained patterns – leadership, escape, survival, repair – knowing that the others will play their parts or die trying to follow him home.

50. Finale

For one moment, it doesn't matter whose knee is busted or whose cheek is bleeding – the turtles battled well, and now, with a little flair and more than a bit of drama, they remind their foes why they are still standing when they disappear into shadow.


End file.
